118
NELSON GOVERNMENT GAZETTE.

schooling, attends regularly, though his home is
separated from his school by nearly eight miles of a
rough hill-track and an unfordable river. To cross
the latter, he has hewn out a canoe for himself, and
each week trudges 75 miles, and ferries himself over
a dangerous creek ten times, in order to obtain
instruction that many who live within a few hundred
yards of the school hold very cheap.

Motupipi: Mrs Robinson.—(18).—Reading and
writing are unusually well taught here. The children
have also a fair knowledge of geography. The dicta-
tion is faulty, the arithmetic of barely average merit.
The organisation and discipline leave nothing to be
desired.

Westport: Mr and Mrs Larchin; assistant, Miss
Blaxall.—(157).—When I last examined here, an
inadequate staff of teachers, whose numbers could
not be increased without enlarging the school build-
ing, was struggling hard against great difficulties
with more success than might have been expected.
I observed a falling off in the reading of the younger
children, and in the arithmetic of every class but the
first. In other respects the credit of the school was
well maintained. Writing, geography, and dictation
were of more than average merit, the two upper
classes reading with fluency and spirit, and explaining
clearly what they had read. Whatever defects I
have pointed out will doubtless speedily disappear after
the completion of the spacious school buildings now
approaching completion.

Addison's Flat: Miss Mills.—(44).—This is a
thoroughly well taught and well disciplined school.
Whatever is attempted is done creditably. Few
mistakes were made in arithmetic, still fewer in dic-
tation. The children read fairly and understood
what they were reading.

Cobden: Mr Ray.—(38).—The children here,
especially in the upper classes, read with clearness
and spirit, as if they thoroughly understood the
subject matter of their lesson. As was the case last
year, no scholar failed to pass in arithmetic. Indeed
not more than three or four mistakes altogether were
made in their sums by the three first classes. When
it is considered that Mr Ray, unassisted, has
frequently as many scholars under his charge as are
usually assigned to two teachers, such a result may
fairly be regarded as unique.

Brunnerton: Mr Young.—(43).—This school has
been carried on under unusual difficulties. When I
visited Brunnerton in April I found 43 children
crowded into a small and dilapidated building, proof
against neither wind nor rain. (A new school-
room is now completed.) In spite of the above
drawbacks, the children were fairly advanced in
reading and arithmetic. They knew scarcely any-
thing, however, of geography or grammar, and wrote
indifferently.

Charleston, St Patrick's: Mr O'donaghue; assistant,
Miss Dulong.—(65).—The present master has been
at work only a month at the time of my last inspec-
tion. He had contrived, nevertheless, in that brief
space to reduce to perfect obedience the rather
unruly scholars with whom he had to deal. The
scholars had also somewhat improved in other
respects, especially in reading. A competent assist-
ant is the one thing wanting to make St Patrick's a
good school. (The present assistant was not ap-
pointed when I left Charleston.)

Charleston: Mrs West; assistant, Mrs Green.—(46).—
Much cannot be expected as yet from this school,
which has not received any aid from the Board pre-
vious to last June, and which is, moreover, attended
by very young children—three only out of seventy-
three having attained their twelfth year. Nothing
but elementary work has hitherto been attempted.
The reading of the first class is good, the writing
fair, the arithmetic throughout very faulty. Good
order is kept.

South Spit: Miss Craddock.—(16).—Although this
hardly rises above the level of an infant school, it
would be hard upon the 16 children who attend to
cut them off from all opportunity of getting instruc-
tion by withdrawing the small subsidy. Admitting
that the standard attained is not such as would
satisfy the requirements of "the revised code," how-
ever leniently interpreted, it may be pleaded that the
children are learning habits of order and obedience,
and are being prepared, however imperfectly, for a
higher class of school.

Brighton: Mrs Murphy.—(34).—I have not found
in any Nelson school children of the same age who
can read so well as those at Brighton. The average
age of the ten scholars in the first class is only 8½,
yet they can read fluently the 4th Irish book, which
is not usually attempted by children under ten or
eleven years old. This special excellence is doubtless
mainly due to a very painstaking teacher, but the
keen interest taken by the parents in the progress of
their children must also have largely contributed to
the result. In other branches the children are fairly,
but by no means remarkably, advanced.

Reefton: Sheil-street, Mr Brown.—(41).—A great
improvement has taken place here since the master
limited the number of his pupils to about 40 daily.
The reading throughout is very good, the children,
especially in the upper classes, understand what they
have read, are well grounded in geography and
grammar, and write fairly well from dictation. The
arithmetic, though elementary, for the most part, has
the great merit of being very correct. The discipline
is all that could be desired.

Reefton, Church-street: Mr Delany; assistant, Miss
Ceresits.—(61).—This school was opened less than a
year ago, and has been under the charge of the pre-
sent master for a few months only. Some time must
elapse before this can be brought up to the level of
even a third-rate country school. Very few, even
in the first class, can read with anything like fluency,
a passage of easy prose. The dictation is full of mis-
takes, and the hand-writing, with few exceptions, an
illegible scrawl. The arithmetic, though backward,
is better than the reading and writing. Most of the
children have yet to learn the rudiments of discipline

Ahaura, St. Mary's: Sisters of Charity.—(35).—
Great improvement has been made in this school during
the past year. The number of good readers has
been nearly doubled, the hand-writing is more
shapely, and no scholar in the first class failed to
pass in an arithmetic paper which required a know-
ledge of proportion and practice. The number of
scholars who succeeded in arithmetic this year, as
compared with last year, was as 14 to 2. The disci-
pline appeared to be hardly strict enough.

Ahaura, St. Andrew's: Mr Haswell.—(33).—The
master here, who had been engaged during the pre-
vious ten months at No Town, where he had done
excellent work, had been appointed to St. Andrew's
only seven weeks at the time of my visit. The
scholars were being carefully taught, and, though
very young, promised well. Few mistakes were